Here's my (mostly) finished patch jacket!! (ง •̀ᵥᵥ•́)ง

There's still room for some patches in the smaller blank areas, but I've added all the main ones I could. The jacket ended up having sort of a theme to it: soil, plants, bugs, cryptids and decay, all things I enjoy! :3

I've still got plenty of other patches made and ideas for more, so I may try out some patch pants soon [I've got a pair of old work pants from my brother that I'm planning to use, they've got plenty of pockets too >:) ].

(The paint I used for the patches is weather-resistant, so it has a bit of a "shiny" finish that doesn't always show up great in photos. There are better photos in previous posts. )

White Europeans on the internet love acting like they're so much better than Americans about racism like y'all just keep ignoring hate crimes against the Romani and pretending y'all don't hate black and brown people, lmao carry on.

My queer fungi project is finally done! Pretty happy with that!

hope is a skill

hope is a weapon you are trained to wield

favourite additions

You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.

My ideal street layout, wide sidewalk, wide bike lanes, and a 2 lane road that only allows streetcars on it. Yes I know this a bad drawing, I made it in a hurry

Are those (black circles w/ small things) supposed to be eg cafe chairs?

If so, they’re posing an accessibility issue due to blocking the sidewalks. Recommend your street layout allow for outdoor seating without blocking sidewalks.

Agreed. The foundation is sound, but there needs to be plenty of space to walk by seating without getting run over by a bike. Seating that hugs the walls of the nearby structure, and open storefronts that let people and services flow seamlessly between the commercial spaces and the sidewalks would be an improvement here.

I actually shrunk the seating to make there be more space for pedestrians

If the tracked area is for trams/streetcars only, may I recommend that you make it green track?

Not only does it add much needed greenery to public spaces, but it also reduces heat at street level, reduces the running noise of trams and dramatically improves water drainage at street level. It even goes as far as reducing the damage to the tracks caused by the material expanding and buckling in high heat by simply keeping the rails cooler and better displacing heat.

It doesn't even have to be grass! Different species of plant, local species or hardier, low-maintenance species can be used, and furthermore, it tends to reduce maintenance costs of the tracks, as soil is easier to dig up than concrete or tarmac, and so the tracks can be accessed and worked on easier.

Obviously, if you want the street to be able to accept buses along with trams/streetcars, or other rubber-tyred vehicles, then a hard surface is necessary, but if it's light rail only, then green track gets my vote.

Already made the edit, I hope you enjoy the green tracks and their flowers. This image is very green

Redoing the color of the bike path to make the street less fucking green

I love the idea of green tracks, but in this case they are not a good choice:

You still need the possibility for rubber based vehicles like Fire Cars or Ambulances to pass the streets.

You can't just put them on tracks because they need to be as mobile as possible to allow maximum efficency.

Okay removing the grass due to firecodes

Urbanism pride flag lol

we still need green so maybe put flowerpots in the middle of the sidewalk? Like rectangular ones that only take up maybe a fifth of the sidewalk width, and their intermittent, maybe one between every other set of trees.

The street planters have come in

Honestly if you want some good green space you should consider bioswales between the bike facilities and the "street", which would help replace some of the lost drainage/filtration function from de-greening the track

The bios have been swaled

@puddlebrigade Okay the tables have been moved and reduced to be more accessible and some planters have been moved

@professionalchaoticdumbass Green is back in fashion

The large dark green dots are trees

Is it too soon for this?

Yes, you aren’t even on the current version

Sidewalk seems a little tight tbh

Sidewalk widened. Goal achieved

@i-use-oxford-comma The benches have been added and @prawnhubpremium The dragon is opening a shop

We are making a good street

resisting arrest shouldn't be a crime. it should be a human right to resist being arrested

When someone is grabbing you and holding you down and shit, resistance isn't even a conscious decision. Your body automatically tries to remain in place against outside forces, and if you've ever just tried to position another person's hands for them or had someone do so to you, you know it's finicky and requires concerted effort. "Resisting arrest" isn't even limited to active struggle but can be invoked whenever the pig thinks someone simply wasn't submitting as smoothly as they wanted. Add to this the fact that the degree of resistance is typically impossible to prove, define or even support with any kind of evidence and it is just 100% an intentionally generic nonsense charge invented so they can punish anybody at all that they've arrested.

How to start building your social village--

How do you go from isolated to being apart of a properly connected social circle?? How do I go from that isolated individual to an actually connected person without having to force myself out to be a regular at a club or something??

Pick the most used social media across all your connections (for my this is sadly Facebook but I'm sure you could do this through discord or some other site I'm like 90% sure this is transferable in some formate maybe other ppl could pitch those ideas tho-) and then add everyone you know! And here's the fun stuff you could do in your group!

Functional ideas Village Group for-

Fun ideas for village-

This allows for a pretty fun way to also make ppl feel connected. If I get to know someone fairly well like my neighbor or another parent from my kiddos school- I'll just add them to my weird little club thing! Here's a patch for you. Your family now!!

The history of Solarpunk

Okay, I guess this has to be said, because the people will always claim the same wrong thing: No, Solarpunk did not "start out as an aesthetic". Jesus, where the hell does this claim even come from? Like, honestly, I am asking.

Solarpunk started out as a genre, that yes, did also include design elements, but also literary elements. A vaguely defined literary genre, but a genre never the less.

And I am not even talking about those early books that we today also claim under the Solarpunk umbrella. So, no, I am not talking about Ursula K. LeGuin, even though she definitely was a big influence on the genre.

The actual history of Solarpunk goes something like that: In the late 1990s and early 2000s the term "Ecopunk" was coined, which was used to refer to books that kinda fit into the Cyberpunk genre umbrella, but were more focused on ecological themes. This was less focused on the "high tech, high life" mantra that Solarpunk ended up with, but it was SciFi stories, that were focused on people interacting with the environment. Often set to a backdrop of environmental apocalypse. Now, other than Solarpunk just a bit later, this genre never got that well defined (especially with Solarpunk kinda taking over the role). As such there is only a handful of things that ever officially called themselves Ecopunk.

At the same time, though, the same sort of thought was picked up in the Brazilian science fiction scene, where the idea was further developed. Both artistically, where it got a lot of influence from the Amazofuturism movement, but also as an ideology. In this there were the ideas from Ecopunk as the "scifi in the ecological collaps" in there, but also the idea of "scifi with technology that allows us to live within the changing world/allows us to live more in harmony with nature".

Now, we do not really know who came up with the idea of naming this "Solarpunk". From all I can find the earliest mention of the term "Solarpunk" that is still online today is in this article from the Blog Republic of Bees. But given the way the blogger talks about it, it is clear there was some vague definition of the genre before it.

These days it is kinda argued about whether that title originally arose in Brazil or in the Anglosphere. But it seems very likely that the term was coined between 2006 and 2008, coming either out of the Brazilian movement around Ecopunk or out of the English Steampunk movement (specifically the literary branch of the Steampunk genre).

In the following years it was thrown around for a bit (there is an archived Wired article from 2009, that mentions the term once, as well as one other article), but for the moment there was not a lot happening in this regard.

Until 2012, when the Brazilian Solarpunk movement really started to bloom and at the same time in Italy Commando Jugendstil made their appearance. In 2012 in Brazil the anthology "Solarpunk: Histórias ecológicas e fantásticas em um mundo sustentável" was released (that did get an English translation not too long ago) establishing some groundwork for the genre. And Commando Jugendstil, who describe themselves as both a "Communication Project" and an "Art Movement", started to work on Solarpunk in Italy. Now, Commando Jugendstil is a bit more complicated than just one or the other. As they very much were a big influence on some of the aesthetic concepts, but also were releasing short stories and did some actual punky political action within Italy.

And all of that was happening in 2012, where the term really started to take off.

And only after this, in 2014, Solarpunk became this aesthetic we know today, when a (now defuct) tumblr blog started posting photos, artworks and other aesthetical things under the caption of Solarpunk. Especially as it was the first time the term was widely used within the Anglosphere.

Undoubtedly: This was probably how most people first learned of Solarpunk... But it was not how Solarpunk started. So, please stop spreading that myth.

The reason this bothers me so much is, that it so widely ignores how this movement definitely has its roots within Latin America and specifically Brazil. Instead this myth basically tries to claim Solarpunk as a thing that fully and completely originated within the anglosphere. Which is just is not.

And yes, there was artistic aspects to that early Solarpunk movement, too. But also a literary and political aspectt. That is not something that was put onto a term that was originally an aesthetic - but rather it was something that was there from the very beginning.

Again: There has been an artistic and aesthetic aspect in Solarpunk from the very beginning, yes. But there has been a literary and political aspect in it the entire time, too. And trying to divorce Solarpunk from those things is just wrong and also... kinda misses the point.

So, please. Just stop claiming that entire "it has been an aesthetic first" thing. Solarpunk is a genre of fiction, it is a political movement, just as much as it is an artistic movement. Always has been. And there has always been punk in it. So, please, stop acting as if Solarpunk is just "pretty artistic vibes". It is not.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk, I guess.

Hi! Admin Jay here! Great overview thanks @alpaca-clouds! Commando Jugendstil are good friends of ours, we love them a lot, solidarity!

For now tho, for those interested, you can find a (more or less complete) history of Solarpunk media online from 2008-18 at the reference guide we put together.

The first Solarpunk post on Tumblr ever was our 'The initial equation' posted by Admin Adam Flynn, June 2012.

Concurring with Alpaca, Solarpunk has always been about more than pretty aesthetics: Check out Adam's July 2012 essay 'On the Need for New Futures' republished here with a forward which was written after the IRL/Online Solarpunk meet-up at WeirdShitCon Portland 2012. Post which, many of the other early admins on this blog got added and involved.

It's worth mentioning that 'Need for New Futures' ends with a bunch of open political and social questions asking what Solarpunk could become? (as it wasn't anything at all at the time) the last two being:

Solarpunk as it's known today originates in Brazil!

When 'Need for New Futures' went online 'Histórias ecológicas' was yet to be published, but novelist JesseaPerry was aware of it, and said the word 'Solarpunk' to Adam - and the rest is history.

Subsequently, Solarpunk had parallel development in the Anglosphere and in Brazil with NO contact between the two scenes until after the publication of the Kickstarted translation of Histórias ecológicas in English by Sarena Ulibarri at Worldweavers in 2017. We (folks behind this blog) have had our lives enriched immensely by contact and dialogue with Solarpunks in Brazil since this happened! The Solarpunk movement at large is in great debt to Sarena!

The first self described Solarpunk story in English was “Sunshine State” written by Adam Flynn and Andrew Dana Hudson - also the winner of 2016's Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction short story competition.

Sunvault and Wings of Renewal, Biketopia etc all came out in subsequent years.

For some early Solarpunk thinking which clearly demonstrate that its about more than just aesthetics: check out Adam's massively viral Solarpunk: Notes toward a Manifesto from 2014 and Andrew's 2015 essay 'On the Politics of Solarpunk' - also the reference guide.

Many of the early Solarpunk voices were interviewed by VICE a few years ago and we explicitly say Solarpunk is about the end of capitalism lol.

As for me (@thejaymo) you can read my pretty viral 2019 essay: SOLARPUNK – Life in the Future, and this more recent one Solarpunk: A Container for More Fertile Futures which is about what Solarpunk means to me.

Being involved in Solarpunk and its community of - kind, motivated people, who are concerned with the struggles en route to a better world, the solutions to live comfortably without fossil fuels, how to equitably manage scarcity and share abundance, to be kinder to each other and to the planet we share - for the last decade, has been one of the biggest and most meaningful experiences of my life.

Thank you Solarpunks 🙏.

I'll close with our groupblogs tagline since the beginning:

Solarpunk: At once a vision of the future, a thoughtful provocation, and an achievable lifestyle. In progress...

Who’s with us?

I...tried to make a meme and got carried away and made A Thing that is like partially unfinished because i spent like 3 hours on it and then got tired.

I think this is mostly scientifically accurate but truth be told, there seems to be relatively little research on succession in regards to lawns specifically (as opposed to like, pastures). I am not exaggerating how bad they are for biodiversity though—recent research has referred to them as "ecological deserts."

Feel free to repost, no need for credit

i’ll look forward to hearing your statement if you ever make it out

Do americans actually live like this

Ai generated photo right. Right?

that looks like an entirely normal suburban american neighborhood so if its AI-generated, it’s realistically done.

So the rest of the world watches our movies and in a lot of our movies we mock and satirize the eeriness and soullessness of these manufactured communities but I’m guessing you guys thought it was exaggeration

Okay I’ll elaborate further:

America does have cute quaint little suburbs as well, but also many many gated communities and housing developments designed to be built as quickly, cheaply and easily as possible. They completely clear a patch of land first, literally they dig it down to an expanse of barren dirt and then they carpet it with grass and erect these literally mass produced houses on it. These places are expensive to live in and they enforce rules that you can’t decorate your yard or the outside of your house any differently from the other homes.

The area where I grew up used to be rolling hills and forests and is now 90% these places in just my lifetime.

Some non Americans also think the two hour walk is exaggerated but even without living in one of these, for most of my life walking to a grocery store in America would have taken longer than that. America is spread out over a gigantic continent and there are no laws or rules ensuring that there’s food for sale within so many miles of residences or anything. Public transportation doesn’t go everywhere, either. I didn’t even see a real city bus until maybe my later 20s.

In most of this country you’re completely fucked if you don’t have access to a car. None of this ever occurred to me as unusual until I saw so many people from around the world just aghast at it all. We grow up here just assuming it’s using the same template for society as everywhere else.

Very important to note that these places also very often have irregular street layouts to try and SEEM quaint, so unless you cut through people’s yards (which is illegal and likely to get the cops called on you in a lot of places), you’ll have to take a winding, often deliberately obtuse route. So a trip that would be 15 minutes by car if streets were laid out in a grid often gets extended to 30 or 45 minutes, because everything is so spread out and indirect.

Also, it’s not that there aren’t laws or rules ensuring there are places to get food in residential areas, there are laws and rules ensuring there AREN’T places to get food.

Most housing in the US is in areas that are zoned as R-1, which means the only things allowed to be built there are single-family, detached houses. No stores/shops, no multiplexes, no apartments. MAYBE a public park and MAYBE one or two administrative buildings, but don’t hold your breath on those.

If you want to go shopping, you’ll need to drive down to a shopping center. Because you have to drive there, the roads are designed for an extremely high volume of traffic, so many places have stores sitting on four to eight lane roads with traffic speeds of at least 45 mph (about 70kph), with no sidewalks, multiple intersections with other four to eight lane roads, and frequent places where drivers are entering and exiting the traffic flow to and from parking lots.

Those areas often wind up with their landscapes dominated by billboard ads for personal injury lawyers who will represent you if you’re in a traffic accident.

as an urban planner, I want everyone to know how much this hellscape is desired by the white middle class (the target market for these developments).

This is the result of

I could expand but the USA has this lifeless surreal development because it itself is a lifeless simulated society that drives settler colonial expansion within the confines of capitalism.

every day screaming crying sobbing over cave art

Do you ever consume a piece of media and are like. This is it. My art needs to get Weirder.

This is my entire journey right now. I won’t be satisfied until I make something truly weird I think. Regular stuff just isn’t cutting it anymore. It’s lost all flavor.

Same here!

We live in an age where a lot of our media is getting more bland and sterile as Capitalism tightens its grip on everything and CEOs care more about money than taking any creative risks. Art is now being boiled down to a formula, to the point where a literal machine can churn it out.

If art has any hope of surviving, I think it NEEDS to keep getting weirder and more out there. It’s the only way to make sense of a completely nonsensical world at this point.

As far as I am concerned, making weird, truly creative art is an act of rebellion.

One thing about researching world around you is that it becomes a bit friendlier once you know it better. If you see a random spider- you get scared. You see plants and consider them just weeds. You look at night sky and see a bunch of stars.

And then, you learn names.

Now, it is an orbweaver, and you consider them a friend. The greenery around is a laurel, or an alium, or osmanthus, and you know which of them to keep away from, and which of them are great herbs for tea. Now, you look up and see a whole parade of Venus, Ursa Major, or Orion. You now know their names, and, if you respect them- they become allies of yours.

"Wow! Wow! Wow! North Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies are going vertical again. And yes, I needed to extend the y-axis. Yesterday's temperature of 24.49°C (76.08°F) was 4.2σ above the 1991-2020 mean. The previous high for July 17 was 23.71°C (74.68°F) in 2020."

this is bad

exponential growth at it again

the y axis has been extended like 3 times in the last week

this chart was at 0.6 like 3 days ago

Summer 2024 is going to be bad, worse than anything we’ve ever seen. It will shock the world.

from the 2nd link. this is the intro to the abstract.

i am 33 years old

50% of global fossil fuel emissions have occurred in my lifetime

they could have saved us, fyi. remember that. remember that well.

they have now extended the Y axis a third time

July 19, 2023

another day, another record. not quite another Y axis extension. maybe tomorrow.

July 20, 2023

the worst part of the consumer economy is people thinking that watching or not watching movies counts as activism

The Best Graphic Novel for Hope - A Dream of a Low Carbon Future.

Are you an artist?

Have you been suffering from climate grief?

Do you feel powerless to do anything about this feeling?

Well, maybe it's time you found out about the graphic novel - "A Dream of a Low Carbon Future".

The novel discusses potential ideas for a sustainable future and covers in detail concepts like the 12 principles of permaculture.

Along with the incredible amount of scientific research backing the development of this comic, it also has amazing storytelling, especially when it comes to how it presents a hypothetical sustainable future. On top of all of this, the artwork is absolutely gorgeous and the work of James Mckay really brings these sustainable futures to life.

This novel - along with meeting friends from a local permaculture/re-wilding group - has really changed my outlook on what's happening. Not only that, but it has emphasised the importance of artists in the fight against climate change and the encroaching threat of fascism. Artists don't just create pretty pictures, we are visionaries capable of sculpting the future and showing everyone else a path forward.

The best part? You can download the full PDF from here completely free!

To end this blog post, I challenge everyone who read this to have a think about what their ideal ecologically-friendly future looks like, maybe even have a go at drawing your idea of a Solarpunk city or town. It could even be your own local area re-imagined as one!

ok so instead of going on my usual the earth is doomed spiral I started looking into solar punk solutions and stumbled across the practice of permaculture & found a free 50 video series from the university of oregon on it if anyone else would like to learn abt ways we can actually start restoring earths whole deal

Characters co-owned w @_magic.stardust_ on IG 😌✨ (a couple more comics abt this on my account already)

I'm not a very positive person, i have a LOT of doomer tendencies. I feel everything like it's cranked up to the max, and as you can imagine it doesn't feel great. Every day throws more atrocious things in my face, and i can't ignore it 🥲

I see other people feeling the same way. We dissociate and numb ourselves by watching, playing, buying stuff. Hateful movements are gaining traction and climate change has its foot in the door

And it's all happening either way, to some degree. I feel like shit, and i'm sick of that. I might as well have a little bit of hope, otherwise i'll go bonkers 😭 Do we continue doomering our way through life or ignoring things altogether, or do we choose to hope a little?

That's why i'm looking into Solarpunk and am thinking of taking any readers (and myself) on a little journey through a better world, and how it might work, through a series of mini-comics I'm posting here. I don't have all the answers (no one person ever does), and i don't hold any pretenses that this kind of world is going to be our future. But i often hear "You love critiquing the status quo, but what do you propose instead?" I'd like to find out too. Here's to something we can hope for, no matter how slim the chances are! Because as I said, i might just lose my mind otherwise ☠️

P.S for new peeps: this is an AU with me and my friend's OCs, so all characters are genderless and go by they/them. It's not identical to our world in that regard, but other than this fact we try to keep it more or less realistic 🤙

I spent a thousand krillion hours on this and the other Solarpunk comics, consider throwing 2$ at me on Buy Me A Coffee to raise my spirits :] I'm not doing well mentally these days, but people's appreciation helps a lot. Thank you very much!